By Nate Carlisle
Salt Lake Tribune
August 2, 2011
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/52333586-78/jeffs-flds-walpole-trial.html.csp
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| Law enforcement officers escort Rebecca Musser, center, a former member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and a witness for the prosecution as she arrives at Tom Green County Courthouse for the sentencing phase of the Warren Jeffs sexual assault trial Friday Aug. 5, 2011, in San Angelo, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez) |
The first full day of his sentencing trial began with Warren Jeffs — president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints — delivering a purported message from God. Jeffs has spoken softly throughout his trial, which finished its 10th day Friday, but raised his voice for the nine-minute proclamation.
"Let this court now be just to let my celestial way be," Jeffs read while the jury was out of the room.
"Do not let my holy way come of naught, lest the cleansing way come of all nations. ... Let my holy way be of freedom to let my people be of a holy way," he continued. "I am soon to fulfill my will of cleansing the land of Zion, North and South America."
After finishing his proclamation, Jeffs lowered his voice and asked to leave the courtroom during the sentencing phase of his child sexual assault trial. Jeffs said he no longer wanted to see his religion "derided in open court."
Jeffs — who has been acting as his own attorney — also said he did not want a lawyer to represent him.
District Judge Barbara Walther removed Jeffs from the courtroom, but ordered Deric Walpole and Emily Detoto, Jeffs’ standby defense attorneys, to step in for the duration of the trial. The judge said court rules do not allow a defendant to be unrepresented at trial.
The judge also indicated she would have Jeffs’ proclamation transcribed and given to the jury as evidence.
Jeffs, 55, remained absent from the courtroom for the rest of the day. But after every recess, the judge asked Walpole if Jeffs wanted to return. The judge made clear, however, that, either way, Walpole and Detoto would continue as his attorneys.
Walpole, of McKinney, Texas, has been in the courtroom since Jeffs began representing himself last week, while Detoto, of Houston, was frequently seen consulting with Jeffs in a defense conference room. Both lawyers had requested more time to prepare before the trial that started two weeks ago, and are now even more behind because they were fired by Jeffs on Day 4 and relegated to advisers.
A 10-woman, two-man jury convicted Jeffs on Thursday of aggravated sexual assault and sexual assault for having sex with two girls, ages 12 and 15, whom he had taken as plural wives. The same jury will decide Jeffs’ sentence, which could be up to life in prison.
Prosecutors are seeking the maximum punishment for Jeffs by presenting evidence of hundreds of "bad acts," including that Jeffs has taken 78 plural wives, and that 24 of them were under the age of 17.
Prosecutors say Jeffs also performed or witnessed 67 other marriages to underage girls, engaged in six other acts of unlawful sex, split families in Utah and Arizona by reassigning wives and children and expelled young men from the FLDS Church in order to have more girls for himself and his inner circle.
In his opening statement to the jury, Walpole called Jeffs a product of his polygamous environment and a man with sincerely held beliefs.
"The stronger the case the prosecution shows, the stronger it will make mine," Walpole told the jury.
"The things [prosecutors] are going to show you happened to those children. The same things happened to him," Walpole said.
The first prosecution witness in the sentencing phase was Larry Beall, a Salt Lake City clinical psychologist who has counseled former FLDS members.
Before initiating sex with girls, Jeffs groomed them with kindness and compliments in a manner typical of pedophiles, Beall said. Some of Jeffs’ victims may not realize they were sexually abused, due in part to the isolation in which many FLDS members live.
"The adolescent girl in the FLDS community has no frame of reference to understand she is a victim," said Beall. "She has no picture of the outside world."
Also, Jeffs was "expert at taking average-sounding words and making them sexual," Beall said. He gave examples of Jeffs using the phrases "being ready" and "heavenly sessions" to refer to sex.
Under cross-examination from Walpole, Beall acknowledged he never interviewed the two victims Jeffs has been convicted of sexually assaulting after he took them for plural wives.
Rebecca Musser, a former FLDS member who also testified in the guilt phase, recalled on Friday an episode after her elderly husband, Rulon Jeffs, who is Warren Jeffs’ father and predecessor, died in 2002. Warren Jeffs originally said his father’s some 64 wives would not be assigned new husbands, but within a month Jeffs had some of the younger wives marry him.
Jeffs wanted Musser as his wife, too, she testified. But Musser said she was resistant, and Jeffs called her into his office and pointed at her.
"I will break you, and I will train you to be a good wife,’ " Musser quoted Jeffs as saying, adding that Jeffs said they would marry the next week.
Musser, who was about 26 years old at the time, left the FLDS Church rather than marry Jeffs.
Prosecutors also called Carolyn Jessop, a former FLDS member and author who has written about fleeing the group and creating a new life for herself.
Jessop testified about asking Jeffs to make her husband, a man 32 years her senior, stop abusing her. But Jeffs offered only a "release," which meant being re-assigned to another husband.
"What that meant to me was being taken from a bad situation and put in a really bad situation," Jessop testified.
During the guilt phase of the trial, prosecutors presented evidence that Jeffs "married" one of his victims when she was 14 years old. Jeffs impregnated the girl when she was 15.
A DNA expert testified Monday there is a greater than 99.9 percent likelihood that Jeffs is the father of the girl’s baby.
Jeffs’ other victim was a 12-year-old girl he married on July 27, 2006, at the FLDS Church’s Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Texas, according to records seized by police during a 2008 raid of the remote ranch.
Audio tapes made by Jeffs purportedly recorded him having sex with the 12-year-old, and instructing the older girl, along with other wives, about group sex.
Neither girl testified for the prosecution.
Also on Friday, prosecutors introduced pictures of two beds found in the temple on the YFZ Ranch. Prosecutors did not introduce evidence that the beds were used for sex, but they have previously shown Jeffs had sex with his two victims at some location in the temple.
Jeffs — who is considered a prophet by the 10,000 or so members of the FLDS church — did little to defend himself.
On Day 5 of the trial, he delivered a so-called revelation from God threatening "sickness and death" to those involved in his prosecution.
Later, he called only a single witness, FLDS member J.D. Roundy, who for nearly five hours talked about the sect’s doctrines and read from Mormon Scripture and the writings of church founder Joseph Smith before the judge dismissed him.
Jeffs’ only other effort at defending himself was to make repeated objections, based on religious persecution, as the state mounted its case. All of Jeffs’ objections were overruled by the judge.
During the 30 minutes allotted to him for a closing argument, Jeffs uttered only the words "I am at peace."
The trial resumes at 10 a.m. central time on Saturday.
ncarlisle@sltrib.com Twitter: @natecarlisle
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